A Blank of Wrapping Material

ABSTRACT

A blank of wrapping material foldable about a tobacco industry product ( 1 ) is disclosed. The blank of wrapping material is formed with a line of weakness ( 12 ) to enable a portion of said blank of wrapping material to be separated from the remainder of the blank of wrapping material along said line of weakness ( 12 ). At least a section of the line of weakness ( 12 ) follows a non-linear path.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a blank of wrapping material for beingfolded about a tobacco industry product. The present invention alsorelates to a bundle of smoking articles comprising a charge of smokingarticles and a wrapping material enclosing the charge of smokingarticles, and a bundle of smoking articles received in a pack.

BACKGROUND

Smoking articles such as cigarettes, cigars or cigarillos, are typicallybundled together and wrapped in a sheet of material, for example, asheet of paper laminated with metal foil. The sheet of material helps topreserve the freshness and the aroma of the tobacco in the smokingarticles. The wrapped charge of smoking articles is further stored in apack which protects the cigarettes from mechanical and environmentaldamage. The pack can be enclosed in an outer transparent plastic film soas to further ensure that the smoking articles are protected from anyenvironmental impact.

To access the smoking articles, a user pulls on a tab of the plasticfilm such that the plastic film tears open. Thereafter, the user opens alid of the pack such that the laminated wrapping material is exposed.The wrapping material is typically formed with a line of perforations sothat a user can easily separate a portion of the wrapping material togain access to the smoking articles held within.

SUMMARY

According to an aspect of the invention, there is provided a blank ofwrapping material foldable about a tobacco industry product, the blankof wrapping material is formed with a line of weakness to enable aportion of said blank of wrapping material to be separated from theremainder of the blank of wrapping material along said line of weakness,wherein at least a section of the line of weakness follows a non-linearpath.

The section of the line of weakness may follow a zigzag pattern, anoscillating path, an arcuate path or a v-shaped path.

According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a bundleof smoking articles for insertion into a smoking article pack,comprising a charge of smoking articles enclosed in a sheet of wrappingmaterial having a front and rear wall separated by side walls, thewrapping material including a line of weakness having a section thatextends across the front wall to enable a portion of said wrappingmaterial to be separated from the remainder of the wrapping materialalong said line of weakness to provide access to the charge of smokingarticles, wherein said section of the line of weakness that extendsacross the front wall follows a non-linear path.

The section of the line of weakness may follow a zigzag pattern, anoscillating path, an arcuate path or a v-shaped path.

According to yet another aspect of the invention, there is provided asmoking article pack containing a bundle of smoking articles comprisingany of the features mentioned above, the pack comprising a body and alid configured so that said section of the line of weakness is concealedto a user when the lid is opened.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a transparent front view of a wrapped bundle of smokingarticles according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 shows a perspective view of the wrapped bundle of smokingarticles shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 shows a front view of a wrapped bundle of smoking articlesreceived in a pack according to the present invention; and

FIG. 4 shows a blank of wrapping material according to the presentinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described by way ofexample only, with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Referring now to the drawings, there is shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 a chargeof smoking articles 1 wrapped in a wrapping for insertion into a smokingarticle pack 15. The wrapping comprises an elongate sheet or blank ofwrapping material 3 as shown in FIG. 4. The sheet or blank of wrappingmaterial 3 may be formed form as foil or paper laminated with foil. Theblank of wrapping material encloses the charge of smoking articles toform a bundle 2 and such that said smoking articles are arranged in rowswith the longitudinal axis ‘A’ of each smoking article being parallel toone another.

The sheet or blank of material 3 encloses the charge of smoking articles1. It is folded about the charge of smoking articles such that it formsa front wall 4 and a rear wall (not shown), wherein the front 4 and rearwalls are parallel to the longitudinal axis ‘A’ of the smoking articles.The sheet of material 3 also forms a bottom wall 5 facing thecombustible end 6 of the smoking articles. Furthermore, the sheet ofmaterial forms side walls 8, 9 and a top wall n of the wrapped charge ofsmoking articles 2 as will now be described.

The side walls 8, 9 comprises side flaps 4 a, 4 h (only right side flapsare visible in FIG. 2) that extend from the front 4 and rear wallstowards the sides of the bundle and that are folded around onto thesides of the smoking articles. The flaps 4 a extending from the frontwall 4 overlap the flaps 4 b extending from the rear wall.

Similarly, top flaps 14 a, 14 b, 14 c, 14 d extending from the frontwall 4, rear wall and the two side walls 8, 9 in an opposite directionto the bottom wall 5 are folded across the mouth end 7 of the smokingarticles so as to form the top wall 11. The top flaps 14 c, 14 dextending form the side walls 8, 9 are folded first, thereafter the topflap 14 b extending from the rear wall is folded and lastly the top flap14 a extending from the front wall 4 is folded such that it overlaps allthe other top flaps 14 b, 14 c, 14 d.

The sheet of material 3 comprises a line of weakness 12. This line canbe scored, perforated or punctured so as to form a weakened line. Theline of weakness 12 extends between opposite long edges of the sheet ofmaterial 3 such that it defines a portion 13 of the sheet of material asseen in figure 4. When the sheet of material 3 encloses the bundle ofsmoking articles It, the line of weakness 12 is located on the frontwall 4 and on its corresponding side flaps 4 a (only one flap is visiblein FIG. 2) which forms part of the side walls 8, 9 of the bundle. Thus,the portion 13 forms an upper end of the bundle of smoking articles.

To remove the portion 13 from the bundle of smoking articles, a userpulls on the top flap 14 a extending from the front wall 4 of the bundleof smoking articles 2 such that wrapping tears or separates along theline of weakness 12. The user pulls in a direction parallel to thelongitudinal axis of the smoking articles which is represented by anarrow (‘B’) in FIGS. 2 and 3. This direction is referred to as a firstdirection.

The line of weakness 12 follows a path that is at an oblique anglerelative to the first direction. The line of weakness 12 therefore has alonger length than is known in the art. Advantageously, such aconfiguration requires a greater force to separate the portion 13 fromthe wrapping compared to a wrapping comprising a line of weakness whichis at a right angle relative to the direction of pulling force. Thus,the wrapping according to the present invention has an improved strengthcompared to the prior art.

Due to the increased stability of the wrapping, the sheet of material 3can be made thinner than the sheets of material used for wrapping abundle of smoking articles known from the prior art. For example, thesheet of material according to the present invention can have athickness of 0.1 mm or less without reducing its strength, whereas aconventional wrapping wherein the line of weakness is at a right anglerelative to the direction of pulling force cannot be made thinner than0.1 mm because the line of weakness or any other part of the sheet ofmaterial could accidentally tear.

As the sheet of material can be made thinner without compromising thestrength of the wrapping material, it is a more cost effective materialthan those known from the prior art.

The line of weakness 12 according to the embodiment shown in FIGS. 1 to4, forms a zigzag pattern, however the scope of the present inventionincludes any pattern or path wherein at least a section extends at anoblique angle relative to the first direction. For example, the line ofweakness 12 may have first and second sections, wherein the firstsection extends at a first angle relative to the first direction and thesecond section extends at a second angle to the first direction, and thesecond angle is different to the first angle. Thus, the line of weaknessmay follow a zigzag pattern as previously described, or a sinus curve,an oscillating path or any other random path comprising first and secondsections of different angles that are oblique to the first direction.

It is also envisaged that the scope of present inventions includes aline of weakness that extends across the front wall 4 of the wrappedbundle of smoking articles along an arcuate or a v-shaped path.

Referring now to FIG. 3, a transparent front view of a pack 15 is shown,with a frame 16 and the bundle of smoking articles 2 received in thepack 15. The frame 16 and the bundle of smoking articles 2 are shown indashed lines. The pack 15 comprises a body 17 and a lid 18, wherein thebody 17 is formed with an upper edge 19 that abuts a corresponding edgeof the lid 18 when the pack is closed.

When the bundle of smoking articles 2 is received in the pack 15, theline of weakness 12 is located below the upper edge 19 of the body 17such that when a user opens the lid 18 and removes the portion 13 of thebundle of smoking articles 2, a distinct edge is formed on the portion13 that is visible to the user. The corresponding distinct edge formedon the remainder of the bundle of smoking articles 2 is concealed to theuser as it is located below the upper edge 19 of the body 17 of the pack15.

It should be appreciated that the bundle of smoking articles 2 asdescribed above is not limited to the pack described herein. The bundleof smoking articles can be used with any pack which enables a charge ofsmoking articles to be wrapped in a wrapping having a removable portion.

As used herein, the term “smoking article” includes smokeable productssuch as cigarettes, cigars and cigarillos whether based on tobacco,tobacco derivatives, expanded tobacco, reconstituted tobacco or tobaccosubstitutes and also heat-not-burn products. The smoking article may beprovided with a filter for the gaseous flow drawn by the smoker.

Furthermore, the present invention is not limited to smoking articles.It shall be envisaged that the blank or sheet of wrapping material canbe used for enclosing or being folded about any tobacco industryproduct.

A tobacco industry product refers to any item made in, or sold by thetobacco industry, typically including a) cigarettes, cigarillos, cigars,tobacco for pipes or for roll-your-own cigarettes, (whether based ontobacco, tobacco derivatives, expanded tobacco, reconstituted tobacco ortobacco substitutes); b) non-smoking products incorporating tobacco,tobacco derivatives, expanded tobacco, reconstituted tobacco or tobaccosubstitutes such as snuff, snus, hard tobacco, and heat-not-burnproducts; and c) other nicotine-delivery systems such as inhalers,lozenges and gum. This list is not intended to be exclusive, but merelyillustrates a range of products which are made and sold in the tobaccoindustry.

A tobacco industry pack refers to any pack that can contain and/orreceive a tobacco industry product.

In order to address various issues and advance the art, the entirety ofthis disclosure shows by way of illustration various embodiments inwhich the claimed invention(s) may be practiced and provide for superiorbundles of smoking articles. The advantages and features of thedisclosure are of a representative sample of embodiments only, and arenot exhaustive and/or exclusive. They are presented only to assist inunderstanding and teach the claimed principles. It should be understoodthat they are not representative of all claimed inventions. As such,certain aspects of the disclosure have not been discussed herein. Thatalternate embodiments may not have been presented for a specific portionof the invention or that further undescribed alternate embodiments maybe available for a portion is not to be considered a disclaimer of thosealternate embodiments. It will be appreciated that many of thoseundescribed embodiments incorporate the same principles of the inventionand others are equivalent. Thus, it is to be understood that otherembodiments may be utilized and modifications may be made withoutdeparting from the scope and/or spirit of the disclosure. As such, allexamples, implementations, and/or embodiments are deemed to benon-limiting throughout this disclosure. Also, no inference should bedrawn regarding those embodiments discussed herein relative to those notdiscussed herein other than it is as such for purposes of reducing spaceand repetition. Various embodiments may suitably comprise, consist of,or consist essentially of, various combinations of the disclosedelements, components, features, parts, steps, means, etc. Some of thedisclosed features, elements, implementation, etc., may be mutuallycontradictory, in that they cannot be simultaneously present in a singleembodiment. Similarly, some features are applicable to one aspect of thedisclosure, and inapplicable to others. In addition, the disclosureincludes other inventions not presently claimed. Applicant reserves allrights in those presently unclaimed inventions including the right toclaim such inventions, file additional applications, continuations,continuations in part, divisions, and/or the like thereof. As such, itshould be understood that advantages, embodiments, examples, function,features, structural, and/or other aspects of the disclosure are not tobe considered limitations on the disclosure as defined by the claims orlimitations on equivalents to the claims.

1. A blank of wrapping material foldable about a tobacco industryproduct, the blank of wrapping material is formed with a line ofweakness to enable a portion of said blank of wrapping material to beseparated from the remainder of the blank of wrapping material alongsaid line of weakness, wherein at least a section of the line ofweakness follows a non-linear path.
 2. The blank of wrapping materialaccording to claim 1, wherein said section of the line of weaknessfollows a zigzag pattern.
 3. The blank of wrapping material according toclaim 1, wherein said section of the line of weakness follows anoscillating path.
 4. The blank of wrapping material according to claim1, wherein said section of the line of weakness follows an arcuate path.5. The blank of wrapping material according to claim 1, wherein saidsection of the line of weakness follows a v-shaped path.
 6. A bundle ofsmoking articles for insertion into a smoking article pack, comprising acharge of smoking articles enclosed in a sheet of wrapping materialhaving a front and rear wall separated by side walls, the wrappingmaterial including a line of weakness having a section that extendsacross the front wall to enable a portion of said wrapping material tobe separated from the remainder of the wrapping material along said lineof weakness to provide access to the charge of smoking articles, whereinsaid section of the line of weakness that extends across the front wallfollows a non-linear path.
 7. The bundle of smoking articles accordingto claim 6, wherein said section of the line of weakness follows azigzag pattern.
 8. The bundle of smoking articles according to claim 6,wherein said section of the line of weakness follows an oscillatingpath.
 9. The bundle of smoking articles according to claim 6, whereinsaid section of the line of weakness follows an arcuate path.
 10. Thebundle of smoking articles according to claim 6, wherein said section ofthe line of weakness follows a v-shaped path.
 11. A smoking article packcontaining a bundle of smoking articles according to claim 6, comprisinga body and a lid configured so that said section of the line of weaknessis concealed to a user when the lid is opened. 12.-13. (canceled)